Speeches by Tufnell.

“There is one bit that I missed out in my questioning, so if you will forgive me. The Cardigan plant spill that we talked about, according to Windrush Against Sewage Pollution, the number of days is something like 1,146 days from the start of 2018 to 2023. If you could just cover this off, why was that allowed to go on …”

“Why did you not do that before it took place? Why was there not a more proactive approach?”

“But before 2018—before the spills took place—why was there not a more proactive approach in order to prevent that from happening in the first place?”

“No, that is fine. Thank you for indulging me, Chair.”

“Let us build on this point of resilience and particularly around the drought in 2022. About 3% of your infrastructure captures the rainfall—correct me if I am wrong. What did you learn about the resilience of Welsh Water in 2022 with that drought, and how has it affected your water security strategy?”

“On that leakage point, it has risen by 15% since 2019, which I think is one of the worst performers in the industry. What steps are you going to be taking in order to get that back on track?”

“I am glad you have mentioned Ofwat because in December last year, the chief executive of Ofwat—who has given evidence before this Committee—said it was indefensible that for five years, you misled customers and regulators on your record for tackling leakage and saving water. You have talked about transparencies to this…”

“Finally on this water security point, there has been an increase in water consumption by over 3% when you compare that to the baseline. To what extent do you take responsibility for that?”

“The three-year average target for 2023-24 was 130 litres per head per day.”

“But there is a big discrepancy between the target and what you are actually achieving.”

“I would like to just ask one final question on pay. In 2021, Peter, your total remuneration was £892,000, and last year, you took a bonus of £91,000. If you take into consideration what we have talked about today around water security, environmental performance, and water quality with the public health element to it, d…”

“Except that there were 56,000 cubic metres of sewage being pumped into the Cleddau from 2022 to 2024. I appreciate there was no uptick in pay in 2023 but there was still an uptick in pay in 2024. During that time, there was the environmental performance and the effect on my constituents in Pembrokeshire, the impact on …”

“In terms of the public perception and the level of impact on people across not only my constituency but across Wales, the environmental degradation, and the importance of bringing the public back on side in respect of water quality, public health and resilience of the system, do you think you as a company—especially wh…”

“The chief executive of Pembrokeshire County Council, for example, is on £212,000. He is operating with a significant budget and has nearly 6,000 people working for him. The chief executive of Cardiff Council has a budget of £1.9 billion and is paid £229,000. When you compare that to the level in 2021 of £891,000, you c…”

“You have touched on the environmental performance being one of your key metrics and of real importance to Welsh Water as a company. It has been reported that there has been an increasing amount of pollution incidents over the last four years. In the last reporting year, there were seven serious pollution incidents. You…”

“I would like to just touch upon the sewer overflows and the spills per storm overflow. It gets quite complicated because the measurements that NRW provide are different in respect of the industry, so the figures are difficult to compare. You can correct me if these figures are wrong: I have 53.5 spills per storm overfl…”

“The problem I am struggling to understand is that you are regulated by Ofwat, and you asked Ofwat for a bespoke harm reduction. Every other water company that has come in here is also regulated by Ofwat. Ofwat did not allow you to have that because you did not provide compelling evidence as to how that would lead to ad…”

“I would like to go into some specific instances. The Cleddau Project, which operates in my constituency in Pembrokeshire, demonstrated that Picton in Haverfordwest is running at 80% capacity. That is 56,000 cubic metres—17 tankers a day—that should be going to a sewage treatment plant. Instead, it is going to a special…”

“I appreciate you saying it took you a while, but to be clear, it took you from July ’22 to February ’24. What steps are you taking to restore the environmental damage that has taken place?”

“Are you confident that you are not going to see an incident like this happen again?”